Other Son Testifies In '80 Murder Case

As brothers in a prominent Lake County family, Kurt and William Rouse shared an expansive home, knew each other's friends, even worked together to put up a skylight.

As adults, they've been separated not only by five years in age but a continent, retreating to opposite coastlines in the aftermath of their parents' brutal 1980 murders in unincorporated Libertyville.

So on Friday when Kurt Rouse walked into a Waukegan courtroom where his brother is on trial for the murders of Bruce and Darlene Rouse, he had not seen younger brother William for a decade and had talked to him only twice.

When he took the witness stand, 36-year-old Kurt Rouse was not a witness for the defense but for the prosecution.

He seemingly damaged a theory that has been suggested by his brother's attorneys--that Kurt had volatile dealings with his parents and could have been involved in the crime.

"I loved my parents, they loved me," Kurt Rouse testified after dissolving in tears when he saw photographs of his parents and his late sister, Robin. "I'd just turned 20. I thought I knew a thing or two."

At the same time, he may have helped his brother's defense when he described William's relationship with his parents.

In an interview outside the courtroom, Kurt Rouse said he wished he wasn't there and rebutted the allegations that it was he who could have committed the crime.

"I'm tired of being falsely accused, having a shadow of a doubt hanging over me," he said. "I have nothing to do with it (the murder). I don't know who did it."

William Rouse, 31, is accused of the shooting death of his mother and the shooting, bludgeoning and stabbing death of his father as they rested in bed in their luxurious home in unincorporated Libertyville.

In videotaped statements elicited last October, Rouse described how he killed his parents after a night of drug use--and a confrontation about it with his mother. The defense contends that the statement was coerced.

As Kurt Rouse entered the courtroom Friday, he put his hand on the shoulder of his brother, who turned to acknowledge the greeting.